


Coming Back from War

by peoriapeoria



Series: Fitter of the Species [19]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Amazon Steve, Arms Manufacturer, Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson Friendship, Bucky Barnes Returns, Bucky Barnes's Metal Arm, Captivity, Gender Issues, Gender or Sex Swap, Historical References, Memory Alteration, Minor Clint Barton/Phil Coulson, Other, POV Bucky Barnes, Past Brainwashing, Past Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanov, Past Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers, Period-Typical Homophobia, Physical Disability, PoW, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Red Room, SHIELD Husbands, Team Dynamics, Veterans, envy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-05
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-07 14:17:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 17
Words: 11,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1902126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peoriapeoria/pseuds/peoriapeoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's not the Winter Soldier and he's not Bucky. Memory is a bitch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks everyone that's been patient. **There's more!** Janet Van Dyne is Wasp http://archiveofourown.org/works/5112329 continues the story of our heroes. Yes, it's true, believers.

Steve is why he is alive. His memory is still jumbled, he's connected things that probably were not before. It hurts, to know just how much he's killed. It's Steve that stops him from being his final victim.

Not Steve turning the other cheek, on the doomed helicarrier, after they'd fought tooth and nail. That broke his conditioning. It almost broke him, it started the deluge of memory, foul memory like the vented raw sewage of their childhood.

Steve as he was, stubborn and little else, that's what stops him from using all he knows of killing to close his book. He cannot drop, shirk, when that skin and bone had fought so hard to get from one day to the next.

He knows this is not the first time Steve used that leverage, that he's held onto that rock before. Steve had that sort of stubborn, more than enough for any one man, enough for himself and to spare.

He still doesn't know how Steve, why Steve was remade as a woman. Schmidt had been changed, his face pared to his hatred, to his embrace of death. Bucky had been powerless, had looked on until... That bridge, that damnable bridge over the inferno. Zola had retracted it. It was one mercy, though he doubted mercy was behind it. She'd just egged him on to cross the truss. He'd never done that kind of work. She was beautiful leaping through the fire.

He was numb on the march. They'd fought to the rest, had punched out, and Bucky had aggregated the right men around them. He'd known Dum-dum, and there was an unlikely knot with him. Jim, Gabe, they both had that look, assessing the rest, knowing this could still blow up. Good.

He'd never asked Steve. He feared he knew what Steve would say. He couldn't be worth this. He followed not Captain America, but Steve. He mourned. Steve was an Avenging Angel, beautiful and deadly. He still loved Steve, but the burn was gone.

That still was a loss. At the time, first he thought it was the war, then he blamed Zola. He'd have proposed, had they survived the war. Maybe given Steve some pointers for Peggy. They weren't obvious, far from it. Peggy was professional, glossy and hard. Bucky had asked about her, it was how he knew what little he did of Steve's basic.

He'd thought about that, Peggy and Steve together before he lost his memory. He hadn't known before he left the Soviets that Steve had already taken Schmidt's plane down. He was fighting the war after his reason was gone. He kept fighting not knowing he wouldn't have a second rescue from Zola.

He never fully lost his memories. They just were buried. If he wasn't out long, if there weren't things that caught, he didn't glimpse his past. They started using him longer, they used him harder. They had him kill Stark, Howard and his wife.

He hadn't liked how Howard looked at Steve. He thinks Dernier knew, not about Steve having been a man, but that Bucky loved Steve...

Bucky had wanted Steve to give it to him, to have his cock shoved into him. He'd been beautiful just as he was; okay, Bucky would have given his all to give Steve better lungs, better blood. They'd said it was his heart, his stomach, but Bucky couldn't see how that was possible. Steve had more heart and guts than any twenty men.

He's still here because of Steve. Damn punk.


	2. Chapter 2

He hadn't thought he would come here. He's been in New York Since-- Since the War, since Zola, since he became the Winter Soldier; he has so many Sinces, none of them good. The Soviets, the bad ones, had sent him here until he went off script, came on his own.

D.C. had been an anomaly for Pierce. He had before scrupled using his Asset on American soil, at least scrupled about contiguous soil because embassies were little bits of America. He remembers Pierce, after he'd gone to the Arizona, only dimly understanding why, and his crocodile sympathy.

He doesn't know who ordered the hit on the Starks. First, he'd been aimed by Hydra, once Zola was 'done' and just tweaking his handiwork. Then the secret Soviets took him and later Pierce, but the timing of his handoff wasn't something they'd risked him knowing. The handlers had changed from speaking Russian to English and back several times, so that provided no clue.

He'd not meant to come here. He'd gone on a mission of repositioning or destroying materiel, removing safe-houses from their column, a start on balancing his ledger. He had to see Steve eventually but he wasn't ready, not to be seen. Dr. Banner was too perceptive; he'd do.

The thing was, safe-houses are close to danger, and he'd gotten sucked into one thing and another, running through ammo, money and ration bars. He could stitch himself but he'd hit a wall in the uneasy truce between his left arm and meat.

Steve wasn't here. He steps from the shadow, from the lacuna of the declared cameras and walks towards Stark Tower. He needs an engineer not a friend. Tony Stark is just as certainly the first as he'll never be the second. The door is unlocked when he gets there. Lights brighten along the route to the private elevator.


	3. Chapter 3

"Take off your shirt."

Once he'd have had something smart to say. Tony looked old. He had seen pictures of course, but he looked in those like the Howard he'd seen at the Expo. This man was old, worn.

"You're here about the arm. Shed the shirt."

"Sure thing, Doll." He peeled out of the long-sleeve knit shirt.

"I'm going to need Bruce."

He looked down at his shoulder where Tony was staring. It was bubbling a little, thin fluid in blisters.

"Bolts. Are those really bolts? What is even there to bolt to?"

Just as he decided that the question was not addressed to him and wondering if he'd come to a crazy man, there was a schematic hanging in the air. Trust a Stark to X-ray on the sly.

"Bruce! Look at that." 

The rumpled man entered, came over to him.

"Hello, Steve is out. That's a bad infection." 

Dr. Banner pulled on gloves, prodded, swabbed and even jabbed him. Then the doctor looked at the image, giving it orders and he was presented in layers. Steve had shown him a book like this; Bucky thought it looked too much like a butcher's chart. Steve's people, his drawings, always did look like they were naked under their clothes.

"What?" He didn't like the way they were whispering. It reminded him of too much, this room was almost too much. At least it wasn't bright white, or grey, institutional green.

"It needs to come off. It's not installed correctly. They might as well have staple-gunned it to you. I've worked out the physics, the reinforcement you'll need." Tony was conducting his computer interface. So much blue light, flashing in and out of existence.

"You need surgery. Two, actually. One to remove it, and after you've recovered, another to reattach the arm." Dr. Banner was skimming just outside of his reach without telegraphing.

"Reinforcement." It was easier than thinking about losing an arm, of accepting this arm back.

"Bit more bone. Nothing that needs to be discussed now. Bruce, think we've got time to culture him some skin?"

The stink eye Banner gave Tony was a thing to behold. "It would be good to try. The first surgery should happen soon."

"You've got someone in mind." Tony tossed the words out as he moved, like a bandleader.

"How soon?" He thought he sounded calm. He didn't feel it.

"As soon as the surgeon is ready."

He can tell that's later than the doctor wants. "Better make your call." No reason to make a dance number of something that's happening.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a medically graphic chapter.

They did discuss reinforcement, because Tony is a very distracting showman and carving off two postage stamps of skin doesn't take much time. It would give him him extra bones to re-attach the arm, to bear the strain of its use. The specifics swam in his head.

"Local." He was still arguing with Banner on the point when the doctor appeared. He smiled at her, she was pretty with high round cheeks, velvet dark skin. "I've got a problem with general anesthetic."

"Bruce, you're a bastard."

He wondered about the "If only." he heard, as he noted her Nigerian accent. He watched her look him over. She questioned Banner, Latin mostly. He threw off a few prayers in his head, reflex.

"Two conditions." She spoke to him. "Restraints and you tell me if the local's not working."

He considered her offer. "Fair enough."

It was grueling. He'd not known what was coming when his left arm was replaced. He'd had both his arms, then pain and oblivion; one flesh and one metal when he awoke, opened his eyes. She had to cut, dig in, Tony had to pull, and Bruce was trying to keep him numb, stay calm himself and finally wrenched the arm free.

The arm kept moving on its table, bloody like any severed limb. Flexing and clenching its fist.

There was more to the surgery, he tilted his head the other way, and eventually it's over. He's been through worse, pawing through Steve after battle, searching for shrapnel even as skin scarred over, having to cut her to be sure it was all removed.


	5. Chapter 5

Stark has him set up in a suite, so he's not underfoot in the lab. There had been clothes in his size in the drawers, toiletries in the bathroom, food in the kitchenette. It was a more complete kitchen than he'd shared with Steve so many decades ago.  
He was off-balance, he'd adjusted to the greater weight, and now he had to work against that memory. Sometimes he 'reached' for things with an arm that didn't exist.

He's taken with the canvas shoes that don't need to be tied, they've elastic attaching the tongue. He couldn't get a safety pin into the short sleeve shirts right, so he stuck with the long sleeve tees. He hadn't considered how impossible using an elastic was one-handed. Doesn't know why there was a giant barrette in the bathroom, knew it saved the mirror.

"Sergeant, Phil Coulson would like to speak with you. Should I say you are not in?"

He'd heard the voice before, but this was no automatic docent. "Who is Phil Coulson?"

"Would you like to schedule an appointment?"

"Does he have a warrant or a subpoena?"

"Phil is part of the Avengers' Initiative and lives on the premises."

That confused him. He knew that the Tower held a number of support businesses, Stark Industries, a few other offices, Tony Stark's penthouse, and living quarters for the Avengers: Doctor Banner, Steve when she was in NYC, Clint Barton aka Hawkeye and Natasha Romanova. Sam Wilson and CEO Pepper Potts also might so be found.

Of course, he was here. "Let him in."

Phil Coulson when he appeared turned out to be a non-descript man with a receding hairline and a middling suit. He wouldn't notice him without preparation.

"Welcome home." He stepped towards the kitchen table, "May I?" He didn't so much as touch the chair though his fingers brushed the table top.

He nodded, "Where do you want to start?"

"Your debrief from '43 has disappeared." He smiled wanly. "We can start where you like."

"How did Zola slip out of Steve's fingers?" He remembered falling, falling before he could pull Steve out of the train car.

"Zola was brought in from the train, transferred from SSR to OSS April 1945. The JIOA provided him with new credentials and brought him to the United States in 1946. Are you- What do you need?"

"I have more memories than fit together. That's because of Zola. I survived the fall, I fought after the fall, and I returned to Allied Forces. I have gone over the records released and nothing there explains how I ended up back on Zola's table or where that table was. And now I hear he was here-"

"New Jersey. Much of his time with SHIELD was in New Jersey."

That brought him up short. He'd ragged Steve for stooping so low trying to get enlisted as to claim being from New Jersey. "Shouldn't have been so adamant not being caught dead there, then."

"I've been combing through fiche, film and paper records to piece together how he undermined SHIELD. More memories than fit together?"

"I woke up with" he pointed towards his left, remembering 'lifting' it wasn't sufficient "the arm, remembering my real one severed below the elbow but I also recall fighting alongside Soviet soldiers trying to work towards someone that spoke English. There are other, later events I remember in two, sometimes three versions."

"Tell me about the soldiers, about the missions."


	6. Chapter 6

"Steve."

He wanted to hug his best friend, but remembered too well nearly punching her to death, shooting her because of Pierce. Steve however just went for it, right arm slung low, missing the bandages. He leaned into her shoulder, remembering when it was the other way around heights-wise. Back when Steve was him.

Steve kept a hand on his good shoulder as the hug dissolves. "So, you've met Phil."

He puffed out at that. Sure, it wasn't an interrogation, they stopped a couple of times for food, but a stroll down his memory lane wasn't dancing a brick road. He'd just as soon never see him again, for all Coulson said he'd get his returned POW paperwork in order.

"Tony and Bruce." Steve is hopeful.

This was going to be a rout. He's never been able to do other than what Steve wanted, if Steve wanted something enough.

"So," Steve looked at his left shoulder.

"Does he treat you well?" Steve's smile stung, just a bit. "Good." He wanted Steve happy, that was no less true now than when he sought the right woman for him. "How's the art?"

"Not going to be distracted."

No, not Steve. "Then let's sit." He pointed and headed into the sitting room. At least it looks nothing like Pierce's house. He took a chair, Steve the ottoman, resting her big hands on his knees.

"Thank you."

He didn't know how to respond to that. No more than he knew how to deal with Steve looking at his shoulder this way. "Don't get used to it, temporary." Yeah, he was a jerk. They never talked about Steve making-- so they didn't need to talk about the metal arm that would be reinstalled.

"Okay."

Steve looked at him like he's sharp pencils and clean paper. 

"How didn't they find you in the Arctic, with all those planes flying those skies?"

Steve dropped her head, he figured she's smiling and doesn't want to, but it's familiar so he did, too. "I took the emptiest sky I could."

Of course. He let it go, he would let it go because he doesn't want to answer for his plummet. He was found, just not saved. He knew time passed between the Battle for New York and the D.C. debacle, but from Steve crashing to Steve reappearing in the red, white and blue, radio silence. He's listened to Stark begging to be given some time. Stark was given years and didn't find Steve. Years HYDRA had him and SHIELD too. How had Agent Carter not put a bullet between his eyes, a poppy for a fallen soldier?

"Bucky?"

He's not, not anymore. He couldn't tell Steve that, knew Steve blamed herself for the train. Sometimes he blames Steve for pulling him from that table. If he'd died in that factory-- He's fairly certain then he would have died. He was little more then than a fly to pull the wings from. He was infinitely more interesting after surviving the fall.

Steve's got him, has pulled him down from the chair, has slipped to the floor and has him cradled to her. He's sobbing and he couldn't stop even though he's not worthy of tears, not even his own. He's a killer, not because of HYDRA and maybe it's not even Uncle Sam's fault though a rifle is far from any Coney Island game. He's not like Steve. He almost killed Steve. His mission. He wept.

\-------------------------

He didn't think this through. He knew he had lied to himself that he could come here and not see Steve. He had wanted to see Steve, he had wanted a forgiveness he didn't deserve but didn't doubt he'd receive. He'd needed help with the arm. He hadn't thought it would take this long.

Steve wanted him to meet the rest of the team. It's impossible, which means nothing to Steve, never really has. Steve doesn't grasp they have no reason to forgive him for the people he's killed. HYDRA made him more deadly but they didn't make a killer, just aimed one.

No argument brooked Steve, never did, not once he was certain, once she was certain. Doctor Banner, Bruce kept looking at him like he's trouble, wary. It's a step away from jealousy, but he doesn't look at Steve like she's a possession. Trouble is a good name for him, and the green doctor wasn't a stupid man.

Clint, he couldn't read him, or he reads too much and couldn't order it. He's read files never meant to be public, not that who they refer to was clear to most. Organizational paranoia could be useful. The wedding ring was a surprise.

Sam welcomed him back, saying something about being glad he was wrong. He doesn't know what it means, but could tell Steve does, it brightened her eyes.

Tony swanned in and out, and he could tell that for all his pretense of being self-absorbed, Tony missed nothing. Doesn't mean he understood it all, but it's all captured.

He remembered Natasha from before. He couldn't recall if he knew who she was when he shot a mark right through her. He remembered waiting for the shot. Clean through her. Did it have to be, to be sure the scientist couldn't be saved? He doesn't know what was true and what merely plausible. He remembered tiny girls lethal, pretty poison, broken like dolls at any failure. She was one of the best.

She was better now, she'd fought him and she'd been smart about it. He wanted to go over what he'd done wrong, what Pierce's programming had made him miss. He'd been wiped in the middle of a mission. He was expendable; he'd always been, in the greater scheme, but valuable too. Pierce was going to break him. Tear him up like crumbs for pigeons.

Coulson appeared, went to Barton. Wedding ring. Hadn't been wearing that for the questioning. Oh. It's not overt, but you'd have to be blind not to see it. It's... It hurt. Change can come too late.

Ms Potts appeared only briefly, clasped his hand between hers not speaking, before she settled in to eat. The look in her eyes, words couldn't do it justice. It unknotted him somehow. She left once she cleaned her plate.

"What?" He watches Steve, Bruce and Sam look at each other, the happy couple getting up, leaving Sam behind. His trash talk makes it clear it's a tactical retreat and Sam's willing.

"How have you been eating?"

It's a strange question. Now, here. It had been a bit rough after D.C. Pierce had not considered even creature comforts for him. Ration bars took him hours to eat at first and he learned the hard way to drink enough water. Wasn't a problem now.

"I can't really know what it was like then. Steve's admitted it was rough, and that makes me think it was worse than that. I don't think you're so different from Steve, metabolically, so eating normal, might not be enough. War, Great Depression..."

He had eaten a lot. Didn't seem like it, grazing along, but he realizes that's because there was so much food and it was stationed about so many places. Plenty of it he could just grab. He wondered if that's a concession.

"We do that for a reason." Sam rolled his shoulders. "Think about it. Breakfast is usually on down here mornings, JARVIS can let you know when. He'll keep you stocked if you don't want company and there's an entire city of delivery."

Sam got up, heading for Natasha. Steve came back with two plates. He took his, nodded for her to sit. He ignored that everything that couldn't be cut with the edge of a fork had been rendered bite-sized. It felt weird from this side.

Back during the war he'd learned, no thanks to Steve, that Captain America took a lot of fuel. They were better at fudging rations when she'd taken shrapnel, but they had to be sharp for her not to do it back.

He'd had an easy time supplementing the men because Steve didn't question, long habituated to his shifting food. Dernier and Falsworth between them could forage, and Monty had made him into a fair hunter, though that had the men on edge until he learned to call coney after dropping a rabbit while on watch.

Gabe had japed the New Yorkers for not being able to dress game, but he and Jim split between them the cooking that should have fallen to Dum-dum, Steve or himself. 

"Want more?" Steve was looking at him

He'd eaten everything unthinkingly. Too bad, it was better food than he'd had in a long while. Probably ever, if he was honest, his mother's cooking or no. There had been meals during the war he was more thankful for, because he'd needed them just then. "I'm good." He didn't think his engine ran as hot as Steve's. Good thing; he couldn't run on the same lean trash, either. That was why they'd had to be so sharp.

"Yeah."

He couldn't help looking at Bruce. Steve doesn't mean it like that, but it'd be easy to read wrong. Men were pretty stupid, see most every fight Steve got into. Funny, the doctor doesn't seem to be paying them any mind. Supposes he doesn't have to, he could grab people like dolls when he changed.

He's not ready to tell her he's not staying. He's not. He'll get the arm put back on and leave like the ghost Zola made him.


	7. Chapter 7

"Would you like me to cut your hair?"

He was surprised Steve had waited this long to offer. "Nah." Earlier, when it was awkward, he'd have acquiesced but he'd gotten used to pulling it back and that was just easier the longer it got. "Thanks."

Even with her face changed, he could read everything Steve's not saying, the offers of help left wordless. Steve's better than he was; they'd been kids. He was lucky Steve hadn't taken a swing at him then.

He stepped to the windows. Looking down at the tops of skyscrapers, real buildings not the glass boxes they put up... He calculated trajectories, average adjustment for wind. He turned back to look at Steve's apartment. "Not living with the Doc?"

"Bucky." She smiles though. "Just an elevator trip away." Her expression changes and he's engulfed in a hug, her right hand cupping his head, just as he once comforted Becca, comforted himself, assured himself that she was safe.

He doesn't deserve this and he held on anyway. He's so glad he didn't pull her from the train. Even glad that the Arctic ice kept her out of Hydra's reach. "Why is the exhibit in the Air and Space Museum?"

Steve chuckled. "Didn't used to be, the old version. The revamp was projected to overwhelm The National Museum of American History and-- You've seen it?" She pulled back to look at him.

"After." He hadn't expected to see himself splashed about larger than life. That it talked about two Captain Americas, not counting the serial actors, had been just as confusing. Not as confusing as the inside of his head. "Funny the way those interviews rub with the rest."

"They recut Peggy's, it's a different edit now."

It's uncomfortable, how the past is a kaleidoscope to shake until it showed what you wanted. Then it was inconvenient that the super soldier delivered wasn't the man promised, now that people had towed the line substituting 'he' for 'she'.

"Give me the nickel tour."

\----------------

He makes a mess, couldn't stop it from happening one handed and it just cascaded, every memory of two hands in concert just spinning him further out of control. He lashed out, that's how angry it all makes him.

There wasn't enough to break to wear him out. He has to come down from the frenzy still with mayhem his motivation. The tablet was what survived; that and the clothes, since it's hard to rip without pulling in opposite directions. He sorted the wreckage. Thinks of Timmy and his wagon. He left the distinct mounds as memorials being uncertain of modern rag and bone men. He set up a rude shelf with some of the lengths of wood.

He doesn't go to breakfast, he rationed the food he had, uses the packaging as dishes.

"The black plastic is microwave safe."

He shook the food from one container to the other, put it into the microwave, shut the door and it turned on before he can punch in the numbers.

"You can control every electrical thing in here."

"Correct."

He mulled that over. He remembers killing in movie theaters, you had to judge it just right. It was easier if you knew the picture. He'd been an engraving tool, a chisel given discretion, not the sledge Pierce recast him as. Ghosts stop at paper kiosks, they buy post cards, they read pulps.

"The Rules of Robotics-" It wasn't quite a question.

"Sir gave me free will."

And from zeros and ones made Adam and placed him into a garden growing two trees, of which he bade him eat. "And you choose to let me know?"

"Discretion and secrets differ though only a tissue divides them."

He ate in silence, turning it over.


	8. Chapter 8

Natasha showed up. "Spar with me." She was wearing yoga pants, sleeveless tee and ballet flats. "There is a gym."

He knew she saw the mound of crockery. The rest had been taken away into the recycling of the Tower. He considered the options. "Let me change." He went into the bedroom.

He looked over his good shoulder still bare-chested. He'd shed jeans and pulled on knit pants, bogging down on a shirt. She'd use an empty sleeve as a handhold.

"Safety pins are in the bathroom." JARVIS offered.

She hit him with a short sleeve tee and strode into his bathroom. He pulled it on and redid his ponytail. Natasha pinned the free sleeve down and swept out of the room.

She didn't go easy on him. He was fighting himself more than her, on his back from poor balance rather than landed blows. She had distracted him by shorting the arm; this was worse. He learned, and he came at her harder, smarter, faster.

And she got better. So much for not going easy on him. He threw her about and she flipped him. She wasn't flagging and he knew that whatever they had done to their pretty dolls, Natasha's endurance was past human. He kept her from choking him with her thighs, and she kept him from pinning her entire.

He noticed they were gaining an audience, not granting her an advantage. He bided his time then pushed hard, leaving his left open. Her kick hurt like a mule and he rammed her to the mat, looping her lower arm and grabbing her left wrist.

"This is over, now!" Banner walked onto the mat. "You're bleeding. Let her go."

"Best two out of three, later." she whispered to him in Russian.

He sat up, and she sashayed to the showers. The doctor pulled his shirt over his head and pulled away the bandages.

"Look at this mess."

He glanced down his side then up at Steve. "Glue me back together?" He'd sprung a few leaks. It wouldn't work a second time. Natasha had come a long way from the Red Room. Steve's expression...

"Grab the dressings, don't bleed everywhere."

He pulled the shirt off his right shoulder and draped it over his left shoulder before gathering the bandages. He chinned the collar before standing.

\---------

"What the hell was that?"

He could tell Bruce had been holding that in. He'd needed a few stitches beyond the glue. "That, was medicine." It hadn't been a fair fight, Natasha had given him points, but he'd held longer than he'd thought.

"Thought you'd left the stupid with Steve."

"That the way it's told now? No, between us there's more than enough to go around." He smiled when his audience barked a laugh. "Looks like this shirt is going to take a lot of salt."

"That is medical waste."

"Shirt."

"Sodium chloride?" He got out a brown bottle etched with NaCl, and a little yellow tipped umbrella printed on paper below that.

"And cold water." He hopped down. "You don't need to do my laundry."

"What I want, what I need and what I end up doing diverge so often- Did you think she could do enough damage to push out the surgery? If she'd hit the socket direct, full out? Hell, even a few broken ribs would be enough, without deflating a lung."

That hadn't crossed his mind, not when he accepted nor when he came up with the tactic.

"Good. You think about that. This just soak?"

"Paste, then rinse. I'll show you. Surprised Steve hasn't shown you this." He didn't expect the knocking on wood. Then again, he knew Steve.

\--------

He looked at Clint Barton sitting on the back of one of his chairs eating Chinese takeout. JARVIS had introduced them one day when he was out. 

"What?-"

"I cleaned up the mat. Gutsy move."

"Thanks."

"You don't have any plates." Clint ate then gestured at the other boxes with his chopsticks. "Help yourself. I moved your rock garden."

He saw it on his shelf sitting on a takeout menu.

Clint mumbled through a mouthful. "That one of Steve's shirts?"

He'd thought it'd be big on Bruce. "Sit on the seat." Barton dropped mid bite and then spun the chair to straddle it. He got down a black plastic container and a serving spoon. He might have hip checked one or two of the cartons while scooping. He sat down. "Why are you here?" He got his chopsticks unwrapped and split apart.

"Cowardice. I'm in the one place Steve and Nat won't be."

He wished he had Clint's faith. But the man had good taste in shredded pork and just might put Steve off for awhile. They ate quietly.

"Pass the moo shu subgum."

He dropped his hand on the correct box, making sure the tab was firmly through the slot.

"Please."

He pushed it to Clint, best automat manners. He eyed his guest questioningly.

"Phil."

That surprised him. Layers and layers.

"So." Barton's eyes went to his shoulder. "Please pass the spoon."

He handed it over as his mom had trained him.

"You know my skillset."

"Rifle would be out, currently." He doubted Stark would want him armed with more than a steak knife. 

"You're having it reinstalled."

He nodded, not that it had been a question. He realized he was making a choice. He hadn't considered it that. "Darts. If Banner gives his blessing."

"Good call, sanctioning. Don't ask this week."

They finished their meal and he saw Barton out. He rinsed the spoon and tray before loading them into the dishwasher, then soaping up the chopstick tips best he could and washed them off. He stacked the empty boxes and dropped them into the trash.


	9. Chapter 9

Steve showed up for breakfast. With breakfast. JARVIS offered him an out but he knew better. Steve didn't give up. And food was food.

"Just look at it." He continued eating. He glanced at Steve a few times. "You aren't going to ask why I did it?"

"That would be pot and kettle. Do you understand now?"

He sipped his coffee. Genuine coffee. Chicory was good and fine in New Orleans, but he'd had more than a lifetime of adulterated coffee. "I needed to."

"So did I."

Oh. It was too early for this. Too late for this. "You had nothing to prove."

"Didn't I? Remember Timmy and his wagon?"

"JARVIS, tell me Liberty Belle made PSAs for the WACS and WAVES."

Steve answered. "Two, one on self-defense where I kicked the stuffing out of a scarecrow, and another about munitions. There were also movie trailers about factory safety, and I awarded ribbons for canning and sock knitting."

"Should I print the photo with the Topeka Girl Scout Troop?"

"Yes!"

"No."

"I do have the Captain America Armed Forces Films." JARVIS intoned.

"I saw those." Dum-Dum only stopped aping them after learning Steve was short-strawing him for aquatic mining. 

"You changed the topic."

"I'm sorry about Timmy." He was just about to ship out, too chicken to ask Steve to give him something to remember, and he found Steve in an alley being clobbered by some galoot bound to be called up sooner or later. Wasn't easy getting him presentable for their dates after he'd been rolled about. "That pose you any trouble?" He waved to take in Steve. It had been the elephant between them. "Are you happy?"

Steve still flushed like a handful of face cards. "No trouble. Yeah, I am."

"Good." Somebody deserved to be happy and it wasn't him.

\-------

"Natasha, so nice of you to drop by." He turned, confirming he wasn't talking to air.

"Thought you might need a combing out."

He did; he had nests forming out of tangles he couldn't tease apart one handed. He got up from the floor and sat on one of the kitchen chairs.

Natasha came out of his room with his comb, taking a seat behind him. He let her get a start on his hair.

"You weren't born in 1984." He didn't expect her to telegraph, but he couldn't read anything. He'd known her better, once. Ancient history.

"Shot me twice now."

"I know. I remember." He doesn't think he gave her any quarter in D.C. He would have killed her if he'd had the angle, the timing. He didn't remember her any more than he had Steve.

"Yeah."

He doesn't ask what she remembers. He'd been too good at his task, had convinced their masters he loved her. They'd frozen him in their displeasure, wiped her from his memory.

"You were born in 1948."

She braids his hair on either side of his head and then down in a single pigtail.

\-------

"You wanted to see me?"

"Got something to show you, Reno." He stepped away from a red cover cloth which he pulled off with a flourish. His arm. The pedestal turned. "What ya think?"

The white star was a nice touch, rimmed in red. Then he saw what was worth the theatrics. It was rolling a dime across its fingers and back again. "How?"

"They'd kludged things together, there were still transistors in there. Everything now is cherry original or next year's Stark." 

He didn't know what to think about it not having been HYDRA's invention. He'd avoided that since Stark has overshared. "Is it going to feel different?"

"You'll get used to the responsiveness."

"Feel. I use it as a cleat." Battering ram, too. He'd struck Steve over and over with it, even as the helicarrier was splitting apart.

"Sounds painful."

"Just like metal against stone or whatever. There is feedback, but not regular touch."

He'd been gripping that railing when he fell, thought he still was when he'd come to after the surgery. He thinks Zola started scrambling his mind before taking his arm.

"I may have changed that."

"Then change it back." 

"During calibration. No, that makes sense." He gestured and a diagram came up. "This is what is going to be implanted, the arm will connect to it. Your nerves, muscle, bones will integrate with this, and that arm will basically snap on. That will allow us to check everything is connected correctly before surgery is over and a doctor won't be needed for most repairs.

"Two weeks before complete install, month, month and a half after that for normal use. That scar you had? It was constantly pulling away, adding tissue and exacerbating the problem. Like pouring in concrete."

"They cut it away when it got bad."

"Show me, JARVIS, give me a mockup." He grabbed a screwdriver and handed it over grip first.

"This wasn't when they'd do it. But once it was wider, once I couldn't compensate, they'd cut in along either side and sew it back together."

"JARVIS, talk to Dr. McCoy about a nondisclosure form and get a consult on this, and lock this from Dr. Bruce Banner." Stark addressed him, "I had a car battery wired to an electromagnet inside my chest and I want to puke."

"Torture."

"Meatball surgery. Bought me time." Stark looked at the mockup. "They, just kept playing kick the can, like passing a budget." Stark was getting quieter and more controlled. "How many times?"

"I don't know. Once since '90." At least once. "Twice before Zola died." He thought the second one was premature. He wasn't sure about the intervening score, because they stored him more once freezing and thawing him became habit.

"He wants to know if the Avengers request a strike force."

"Find a poem about cowards in the skirts of death and make a standard fee transfer."

"He asks you consider it a standing offer."

"Arrange for an unexpected world class musician/musicians to grace one of the small colleges in that area within the next year."

"Yes, Sir."

"So, the surgeon will insert the reinforcement structure, don't worry it starts as flexible nylon so not terribly invasive, it'll build like a reef, and then get this" he pointed at the shoulder contraption diagram which brightened "connected up.

"Don't pull any stunts like that fight club scene during recovery. Once the interface is on, I'm leaving you to the meat specialists, so if you go overboard with the arm, I'll give them an army to confiscate it until it doesn't adversely affect healing. Am I clear?"

"Crystal."

"Good. Because I don't want to see Steve's disappointed face."


	10. Chapter 10

"Darts?" Stark looked at the target.

"I've approved this tourney."

"Would your medical opinion not approve firearms? This is a shooting range, not just for archery. Or darts."

Hawkeye embedded a dart in his own earlier bullseye.

"JARVIS, you got that for posterity?"

"Yes."

"Brucie, yea or nay on Lone Ranger here and the bang bang?"

Banner walked towards the range door. "As long as someone besides myself assists him load and clean up, and everyone wears hearing protection, have at it."

"You're not staying?"

"Nope. I'm going to watch cats on YouTube."

Natasha leaned over, "May I assist you?"

"I could load one-handed."

"Not today."

"Not today. Spasibo."

"Please hold for another participant. Gather your eye and hearing protection." JARVIS instructed.

"Who all is in? Any objections to Natasha shooting and assisting?" It was unanimous. "Then select your weapons. Agent?"

Phil Coulson stepped inside.

"Tony." Steve sounded so much like Sarah Rogers.

"It's a term of affection."

Clint stared at an area that included and excluded Tony.

"Standard distances to start. Outline targets, kill shots. Stand back, lanes up. Natasha is the only one that moves, between her and Barnes' spots. Eyes and ears." He followed his own instructions.

They fired together the first two targets, then followed the lights' signal. No lane had the go ahead, and JARVIS stated they could remove the muffs.

"That's first round. What do we have? Headshots, one center mass per. Hawkeye. Center mass, headshots. Moi. Steve, what is this?"

"Femoral artery, gut shot, center mass, head."

"Consistent. Headshots and center mass. Natasha. Headshots. Barnes. Head and center mass, femoral artery. Agent Coulson. JARVIS, move out the range."

He and Clint repeated themselves. Tony maintained good center mass, head shots wandered. Natasha focused more on headshots. Steve focused on center mass and head. Phil went straight center mass and headshots.

The next round Tony impressed him. Not many civilians could hit a building at this range with a handgun, much less center mass. Steve went center mass and gut.   
Phil and Natasha both went center mass. Barton joined him on headshots.

"I'm out." Phil averred.

"I'm with the agent." Tony stated.

He watched Natasha and Steve communicate just with looks.

Natasha enunciated, "Sausagefest."

They didn't finish the next round, Avengers Assemble cut it short. Phil cleaned Natasha and Clint's guns on finishing his own, listening to JARVIS report. He ejected the magazines of the other three and cleared the chambers, putting them into the lock up. "I'll be in tactical."

He returned protective gear to locker, cleaning each piece as he stowed it, then policed casings. He was missing one.

"I've got it logged, it wasn't ejected. This isn't the armory, it'll be addressed as soon as possible."

"Where is tactical?"

"I can route feed-"

"Nevermind. What are they up against?"

"Wrecking Crew. Powered but otherwise common criminals."

He went to the common floor.

\-------------

"Is that chili?" Pepper looked at the electric oven he'd put the cooked and seasoned meat into.

"Want some?"

"Oh, yeah. No, I'm fine." She waved him off and grabbed a bowl. "You're keeping busy."

He was making things that got better for stewing. And biscuits. Bottle worked great rolling out the dough.

"I hate the waiting."

He looked at her, million dollars pre-inflation, CEO. "Surprised you've the time to notice."

"Multi-task and know how to delegate." She ate concertedly. "This is really good."

"Thanks." He noticed her looking about, like something was missing.

"Sweet-tooth."

He dug in the refrigerator and pulled out the tub of mascarpone and a jar of sour cherries. He selected a still hot biscuit and split it in the bagel slicer and got out a slotted spoon.

Pepper opened the jar while he slathered the two halves with the sweet cheese. She spooned on fruit and grabbed a fork, taking a bite. "Yes." She looked at him. "Any jars you'd liked opened?"

"There's some relish pickles."


	11. Chapter 11

The night terrors were getting worse. He figured it's because he's safe enough to freak out. It happened that way in London during the War, he was fine in the field, he'd had no peace since disembarking east side of the Atlantic until they airlifted after the rescue. Just as well that he wouldn't leave Steve without a watchful trigger finger.

JARVIS was an anchor. He stated the hour, the date and year, gave a weather status, threw in a topical bit of trivia. JARVIS doesn't just say these things, they were projected onto the wall, whichever wall he's facing. It made the date real, the wide ranging scope of erudition and banal pap. He hasn't the imagination to dream this.

He missed destroying caches. He's no longer built for peace; the world has little enough of it, he's just visiting. Two arms and he'll leave; JARVIS helps him hold on. 

\-------------------

"You've not been out since coming in."

He didn't startle at Clint. "JARVIS--"

"He didn't rat. I had time on my hands."

"Thought it was Phil's duty to alleviate that."

Clint brayed with laughter. "Has to be somewhere you want to go."

He almost asked if there was a time machine. He wouldn't bet he could keep the question light. Dr. Erskine couldn't have been haunting all the induction centers; erase that fluke meeting, transport Steve here and now. This wasn't the pulps.

"What's the plan once the arm's back on? Disappear?" Clint paused then continued. "Steve looked for you. Steve was looking for you even before she knew you were alive."

"Fine, we'll go out and not talk about this." He caught Barton's grin in reflection.

\-----------

"Anesthesia, non-negotiable."

He nodded at Dr. Awojobi. He trusted Bruce wouldn't leave him immobilized and aware. He hadn't had that before. It was pretty much his contribution, as the three specialists went over details that washed past him. This time Stark would only be entering to confirm wiring, because shit happens and it happened when you thought it impossible. General Murphy.

The nylon substrate would be threaded through his torso to resolve the engineering shortfalls of shoulder blades once calcium deposited as new bone. The more complicated portion of the surgery was the implantation of the connection plate and wiring it to the involved nerves. The only thing worse than knowing how the sausage is made when you were the sausage is not.

"No solid food from here through surgery. It's going to be a long day tomorrow." 

\------------

"Steve?" His mouth was so dry, and it took him moments to remember Steve getting bigger and womanly. That he'd had this reaction before slammed into him. Nausea roiled.

He held onto the contents of his stomach. Then he hadn't thought it was Steve, didn't believe he really was being rescued. "Dry." He was given ice chips, not as many as he wanted.

Bruce entered shortly. "How are you feeling?"

"Like Natasha kicked me on the way to a half-track."

"Reasonable. These are an anti-inflamatory, should reduce the half-track portion." Bruce sat the paper cup on the bed table and poured some of the melt water into a tumbler. "Sleep and time will do the rest. Do you need help with the pain to do that?"

He swallowed the pills and water while he thought it over. "This is manageable."

"Let me know if that changes." Bruce brushed his fingers over Steve's hand and left.

"The truth."

"Like you told during the war?" Steve didn't have an answer to that. "Sit." He reached over with his right hand. "It'll be better, later. More water?" Ice chips again. He slipped into sleep.


	12. Chapter 12

Phil Coulson appeared once he's back in the suite instead of medical. "I have some questions about Dallas, Texas, November 1963."

"Shoot."

"Did you assassinate the President of the United States?"

"Going to ask me about Marilyn Monroe too?" The thing about Coulson was he didn't take bait. "No, those weren't my orders."

"What were your orders? Be as precise as you can."

"I was to make sure the First Lady survived. I was instructed that she was in danger, and that protecting her was my job from November 20th through December 16th."

"Did you know of plans to assassinate the President of the United States?"

"Shooting Oswald would have been simpler, to achieve my mission."

"Why do you think you were given that mission?"

"For as much as Pierce said I wrote the 20th century, you'd better ask a pen than me. Do you know why fifty years? It's because no one cares about internal CCCP matters, about people that never made it into history books because they were blotted out. You could fill a volume with notorious people I didn't kill that I could have. I had no orders for them."

"I have to ask you about 1943. From your battlefield surrender, internment through the rescue and return."

"I'll need a glass of water."


	13. Chapter 13

"Who are you?" She was just a slip of a thing, the height of woman he'd been looking for for Steve, even wearing heels.

"Jan van Dyne, and handsome, I'm going to make you look like a million bucks." She held onto his right arm.

"I reckon you're selling yourself short." He slipped her grip and wrapped his arm around her, polite like.

"Bull market. I'm Darcy." She stuck out her hand, the pull of her arm in the sleeve suggesting at the concealed weapon of her body under baggy clothes. 

He shook it, thinking he might have just passed a test. Jan had pulled out a tape measure and lifted it to his shoulders. "You're a tailor?"

"Designer. And I've found my muse."

"Jan, so soon you tire of me?" Clint was juggling grapes into his mouth one handed.

"Don't be so melodramatic, Barton. Barnes, hats?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

She smiled at him, then stuck out her tongue at Clint, continuing measuring him.

"I have all his measurements available." JARVIS intoned.

"Spoilsport." She stayed on his left.

"I've so many questions for you, just for the 1930s."

Jan waved at Clint and took the plate he handed to her. "Share?"

He needed a moment to register what she was asking him, and took one half of the sandwich. He turned to Darcy. "Just the 1930s?"

"Political science majors can't offer confidentiality." She took a big bite from her own sandwich.

"She's part of Thor's entourage."

"I'm Jane's entourage. Thor is too."

"Jane-"

"Doctor Jane Foster." Clint offered helpfully. "Astrophysicist."

"Don't try understanding." Coulson strode to the kitchen.

He looked at Jan. She raised her shoulders as she razed her meal. Delicate, precisely, utterly gone. He moved to get up.

"Don't bother." Coulson had brought in a tray of food. "Ms Lewis, will you be my second for the congressional hearing?"

She looked stunned and glanced at Jan. "When is it?"

"Two weeks. Aspirational, only, Jan."

"Limits do inspire, Phil."

"I'm honored. Briefing?" Darcy asked.

"This afternoon." He looked up from the sandwich he'd made. "What would you like?"

\-------------

"Why are you doing this?" He supposed it was a question he could have asked Tony when he wasn't attaching his arm.

"Stark Industries weapons killed a lot of people. If Hydra hadn't sent you, they'd have tried something else. My father got into munitions to help soldiers, so I'm helping one that's been wronged." He kept working right along as he spoke. "And you're Steve's boyhood pal, and Bruce is my science brother." Tony stepped away. "So, am I still a genius?"

He picked up one of the drivers from the table and flipped it like a knife this way and that. "Got any eggs to separate?"

"Sure."

JARVIS helped him locate clean bowls in the kitchenette. He washed the mugs in the sink and the forks he found questionable. Egg separation was successful nine out of ten times. He whipped the yolks with half and half, sugar and some cocoa, and the whites with sugar. "Blow torch?"

Tony donned a visor and lit up, cooking the custard and toasting the meringues.

He snapped one of the meringues and dipped it into a cup of custard, taking a bite. "Tastes like genius."

Tony shut off the torch and grabbed a spoon. After he ate several bites. "I can't even make an omelette."

\----------------------------

"What's this?" He looked at Coulson, waving him in with the booklet just handed to him.

"That's a passbook. I would recommend you speak with Lisa Rodriguez, she'll best understand how to leverage your two million dollars."

"What?"

"Your payout. I know it's not much for seventy years."

"After everything in D.C.?"

"Lisa is Stark Industries' best financial advisor. You were a POW. And, it turns out you rescued another American POW in 1970. More than one actually, but one was on the committee. He'd thought he'd hallucinated you. He wants to present you your purple heart."

"Vietnam."

"You didn't mention it."

"I liquidated the camp officers for their failure; the prisoners were starved, tortured. Nothing to report."

"He said you kept calling him Steve. He said looking back, he doubted you knew anything but Steve, even seeing your friend in him. Getting him and the others out, never even thinking to walk away yourself."

He doesn't remember that part. There were so many times he railed against Steve leaving him, he expected he just cribbed bits and pieces and now they were back in their proper places. Too many pens and cages. "There are no medals for me."

"Publicly probably not. The President wanted me to bring this to you." Coulson offered a jumpdrive. "But then, no one is expecting so spry a veteran of WWII. That the honors are presented privately--"

"I watched a woman die for no reason but she left her phone and came back to see me with Pierce. Renata."

"You didn't kill her."

"I didn't stop him from killing her. He picked up the gun from the table and just shot her."

"Why didn't you?"

"It didn't occur to me. I didn't think to do something. I had the skills and I didn't use them."

"You didn't shoot her."

"I didn't have any orders. She was his housekeeper. He just shot her, telling her she should have knocked." He looked at the booklet and the drive, handing the one back. "I can't take this. I should read or watch this."

"Understood." Phil left.


	14. Chapter 14

"Sam."

"Before you wonder, I'm here to eat blinis. You want one?"

"Sure."

"Don't worry, I left some in my kitchen for Natasha."

"I'm not following you."

"And I hope she'll let me eat these in peace with you." Sam took out the container from the bag, along with two saucers. "Flatware?"

He got up for forks and knives. "You're a counselor."

"At work. Here I'm a friend." He placed one blini on a saucer and slid it over, before plating two more for himself. He opened the smaller containers.

He anointed his blini. "How did you three meet?"

"Funny that, no one's bothered to ask. I run in the mornings in D.C. and then one day I've got this hardcore woman lapping me. I figure, sure, that's Captain America, of course I'm getting lapped. So, I get used to the breeze on my left until I find she'd been holding back, or maybe running side trips, you'd have to ask Steve, but she does a half-marathon in thirty minutes and checks to make sure I don't need a medic.

Then Natasha shows in a Stingray saying she's looking for a national monument. Next time I see them they're covered in soot and gravel, knocking on my door. Yadda yadda, and I'm doing search and rescue until I find Steve on the banks of the Potomac."

"The usual." What he wouldn't have given if Steve could have run to the corner and back without wheezing, so long ago.

"How is Brooklyn still here?"

"Steve was smaller then. No artillery either."

"I told her you might not be the kind to save, that you were the kind to stop."

"Accurate."

"Nah. You were both, and Steve saw that. I'd appreciate it if you don't just bail on her. How's the arm?"

"I was trying to kill you."

"But not succeeding. We won, and that includes getting you back. Late and too long in coming, but back."

He can tell from the way Sam says it, there's someone he lost he'd give his eyeteeth to have here. "They gave me back pay."

Sam whistled. "That's got to be some pretty interest. I should be saluting, what with the promotions." He looked in the box. "Last blini?"

"There's more than one."

"One's on offer." Sam served it onto the saucer, before taking the other two himself. "You have remorse; the Winter Soldier didn't anymore than a tank does. You spent a lifetime a POW, thought KIA. Nothing can get that back for you, no more than anything we say takes away what they had you do. You just have to figure it out, going forward. Probably in a full infantry pack, not a man purse."

"You're just as much trouble as Steve."

"Just slower. And I fly."

\--------------

"What was Professor Jones like?"

"Who?" He still hasn't seen Jane, so he thinks Darcy is confused about being part of an entourage. Jan is fine tuning a jacket. She's working the shoulders just so.

"Gabriel Jones."

"Right. We owed a lot to him and the French majors, though maybe more to one co-ed than the whole department." Their college man had gone back to his books. "Didn't ask Steve?"

"You follow all lines of intel." She had a hinged tablet, half screen half keyboard.

"Did he get any good with that trumpet?" It wasn't the best story by a long shot, but safe enough.

"No! That's the first I've heard about a horn. He played?"

"You'd have to be very generous to call it that." And a skilled liar. It wasn't like Gabe got much chance to practice. He launched into the story of the trumpet, smoothing Jan's ruffled feathers from moving about too much.


	15. Chapter 15

He'd destroyed the jumpdrive as requested, letting JARVIS save the official welcome from the President. That made no mention of the Asset, of D.C. or anything else from the laundry list of his offenses. It's well-delivered, but without those things there's not much to him being a POW; in the eyes-only recording the President did allude to them, and addressed the first time he'd been captured, about his continuing service above and beyond the call. That's passionate and sympathetic, and he's wondering who figured out how Steve's ill-planned rescue came about. 

He speaks to Linda about the two million. Somehow it turns out to be amazingly tax-free. That doesn't feel right. She countered with how much sound planning could have magnified return on just the amount from say the first ten years. He doubts one in a hundred could have been that shrewd, without some fancy education. He answers her questions and leaves it to her.

His left side is getting stronger, though he's still restricted to light use of the arm. The new bone and the muscles that support it aren't ready for more. Plenty of things are lighter than twenty pounds.

"Peggy should have won."

Giving Steve the bird with his left hand is most satisfying. "She did."

"You should have been disqualified. Did five more one-armed push-ups." Steve joins him on the mat.

He'd have dropped out earlier, but Carter kept going past Gabe and Jim. Steve had been their referee. "She beat five men out of six. On another day she could have swept the lot."

"If I had known--"

"Why didn't you give co-ordinates? I understand taking the plane down, but coming after you with a starting point would have been so much more efficient."

"I didn't consider there would be anything to find besides the plane. Schmidt was going to ignite the world. It's not the sort of thing once seen that can be forgotten."

"Schmidt didn't have a monopoly on that sort of crazy." One didn't even need hindsight for that. 

"No." Steve did several push-ups quietly. "The night before, before Rebirth, Doctor Erskine came to the barracks and told me I was chosen not to be a perfect soldier, but because he trusted me to stay a good man. The dead have a hard time enforcing their will."

"If you had known--"

"That you could have survived that fall, I'd have risked that I could too and would have done anything to find you. I'm not sure I would have survived the crash, then. Seventy years is a long time to heal, even on ice."

He'd not considered that. He didn't know if thawing Steve out would have overridden judgements of whether she could be saved. He dropped to his knees, sitting up. He knew there were worse things than dying. He's grateful that Steve is here, breathing, whole as in the war. Better that he bore them, and Steve escape them and death both.

"What if I came to my senses after I killed you? Or I didn't come to them at all?"

"Not the world we're living in."

He prayed for those so cursed, the least he owed for being spared. Steve was like this, what worked did, and that it could have gone badly-- hypotheticals and hand grenades. Now, if someone else actually paid for Steve's choices, he made better ones going forward. He'd gotten very good at sewing rips and tears, getting out blood marks, so his fisticuffs weren't more burden than seeing him bloodied and bruised.

Steve never was good at seeing how that was unacceptable. Steve was worse about that than ever, and considering how he was before the war and then during the war-- You might choose your friends but you couldn't change them.


	16. Chapter 16

This was when he should be leaving. He's been cleared to use his left arm in any way he'd use his right for a week. Instead he's in the gym playing a thug for Pepper's defense lesson. He's not fighting all out. He is giving her openings in the places overconfident toughs would leave them, using his left defensively.

He'd watched the filed sessions before agreeing. Pepper didn't have a problem falling or with lashing out, her stamina was good. The idea was for her to achieve a clean disengage. She'd have to disable, and expect disguised further combatants.

He wound up on his back and she scrambled the 1-story wall. She'd flipped him grabbing his wrist. He wasn't winded. Startled. She'd grabbed his left wrist. He got up, sweeping his feet out as Natasha came for him. They weren't sparing, this was purely diagnostic.

Natasha might be a touch restless. He threw her as if it were a dance. He evaded, engaged and regrouped as it suited him. They broke apart.

"That was beautiful." Pepper walked towards them, water bottle in hand.

He attacked. Pepper smoothly lashed out and scrambled against his hold. He took kicks to his knees and he fought to consolidate his hold. She eeled out and stomped his feet, sweeping his legs before running again.

Natasha was looking at him judgingly. He could have held Pepper, without injuring her. He'd have had to use his left arm.

"Natasha." Pepper looked over at the showers. She came at him as the Widow retreated. "We should clear something up, right now."

Her hand was on fire. She hadn't swiped it into gas, this was no carny trick. Pepper was holding fire.

"AIM took me. It's called Extremis." She twisted her hands, and the fire was gone. Not even any soot. "I trust you not to go too far, but I need to trust you to be hard. I won't be taken again. Understand me?"

"I."

"Session's over." She kissed him on the left cheek, then headed off to stair step the rest of her scheduled time.

\-----------------

Hulk is really big. He's not scared but awe... Yeah, awe takes this in. He doesn't understand how this and Bruce are the same body. He really doesn't understand how Serum did this.

"Shiny."

Hulk is not wrong, his left arm is shiny.

"Two Star."

That takes him longer.

"Star's friend. Like Star."

He smiles. It's something they have in common. "Star couldn't come." Steve was on junket, a calculated version of the bond tour but with higher stakes. He hadn't expected to be meeting the Other Guy without Steve present.

Clint and Sam were with him. Thor still hasn't shown, and Tony seemed to feel one flyer made no sense, the Falcon harness too delicate for this application. They've brought a Hulk-rated ball that's just small enough they each can push it about.

Hulk is the one that figures out he shouldn't throw the ball towards anywhere they are. Once Hulk says it it is obvious, but he certainly hadn't thought about it. Sam says his grade school had something like this ball. Clint shrugs and throws himself at the ball, seeing how fast he can get it rolling.

Hulk bats the ball gently open handed. Gets good english on it.

"Drink water." Hulk underscores his statement by plucking up the ball. He's pretty sure Hulk drops the ball right on the spot he'd removed it from after they all break.  
They run about much of the day.

"Bubbles." At least, he thinks that's what Hulk said. Clint pours into a tray, and Hulk waves about a plastic paddle of rings sending a stream of bubbles floating off.

"Two Star."

It takes him a bit to realize that that's him. Hulk is offering the paddle to him. He flicks too hard the first time, shattering the film and getting only tiny bubbles and not many of those. He does better the next time, then hands the paddle back. Clint tops up the tray. Hulk sends more bubbles off then offers Sam the bubble maker.

It's a strange thing, but nice.


	17. Chapter 17

"What did you want to be, before the war?"

The question surprises him. No one has asked him; maybe it makes sense that JARVIS is the one to ask. Stark is too aware of who he's been since, and both he and Jan were good as born on a different planet. The rich really couldn't be like other people. The questions that Darcy asks make him think time is like place. JARVIS has helped, providing scraps of film and newspaper photos. He has a different perspective.

"Not much overlap." It was interesting, how JARVIS could work silence. "Warm, dry. Steve not dying sick." Yeah, JARVIS had all the tricks down. "I learned enough to help out Steve, etching plates, that sort of thing." He'd not had much call for it, but Steve was meant for better things than the newspaper illustrations and various lettering jobs. They'd done a few projects, when there was money to spare for materials. He'd made the time.

"Have you spoken with Steve about further collaboration?"

He knew JARVIS knew that he hadn't. There was little JARVIS wasn't privy to, at least regarding himself. He figured Bruce and Steve kept more private, as was right. "You working with Sam?"

"I work with all the Avengers and associates." The AI paused. "I've found that people do better when they have both a firm footing and something to reach for."

He had messes to mop up. He was just about back in trim, the new bone and muscle strong and getting stronger. He'd never make up for the things he'd done. That wasn't the point. He'd do what he could, now that he had the choice. Plowshares and pruning hooks. He just needed to plan, figure out where to start. He'd have to leave the right way, so Steve didn't come after him.

He thought he might be the only one that knew all the caches he did, though some of them may be blown, will have been moved. Some will contain unstable munitions and outdated currencies. He'll have to leapfrog about to not draw attention, to balance lean and fat.

There were viable cells of HYDRA still out there. There were other dangers. These were challenges he has the right skillset to face. Darcy and the smart kids that grew up in the broken world he's made had the hard job. At least they'll be working with more than horses and knights and they don't have Insight hovering overhead.

Steve stopped him. Insight online would have rendered him surplus to purpose, with Insight online anyone's ability to contradict HYDRA would have been exponentially harder. Pierce overreached and his plans melted because Steve could smell a bully.

\----------------------

He left the Tower unremarkably, through a ground level door wearing a suit. He'd laid his groundwork, had situated redundant caches. He had studied JARVIS, learned that what JARVIS would do was bound ethically. That limit gave him a window during which he could calmly walk away. He did, in a suit.

Steve somehow found him. JARVIS wouldn't have helped, wouldn't have interfaced the ATM cameras, wouldn't have sifted through the security footage of businesses, the feed of traffic cams. Steve didn't approach, she just followed; it took him entirely too long to figure out he was in stalemate, that she would walk out of her life. He led them back to the Tower, scenically. Steve has a mouth, which had best not be vined. He's going to have to oil these shoes once they dry.

He intersected JARVIS' perimeter and cleaned up. He would be observed, but he trusted JARVIS. Steve gave him space, so JARVIS had his back.

Steve was waiting for him when the elevator doors slid open for him to get out.  
It was surprising how effective Steve's all eyes expression was even aimed down. He walked out past her. He's mad and he's proud and he's sorry and it's all a big mess.

"I've got things to do, places to be." HYDRA to kill, that went without saying.

"What?" Steve pauses. "Where? I could come with you."

"No." It's not just that Captain America drew attention. He didn't want Steve to see who he was. Carving out HYDRA wouldn't be neat. He may drop some politicians at the Hague, should they be in operation area. Governments wouldn't want light shown on cankers, and Steve reflects. That's just Steve, bunting bows or not.

"You don't need to do this."

"How can you know what I need?"

"You don't have to go alone. We're a team, the Avengers are a team."

He wasn't an Avenger. He'd tried killing too many of them for that. "Steve. This is what I'm good at. Let me take care of it."

Steve entreats, cajoles. He speaks of the Howling Commandos, of Brooklyn.

"I'm not the man I was." He just realized they weren't alone with JARVIS. If he'd said... He needs to go, he needed to leave Steve to the life she had built.

"You could figure out who you're going to be here." Natasha doesn't approach him, she headed to Steve.

Damn her. "I'm not an Avenger." He didn't know how she made this leap. The Red Room pulled out every weakness, sought to extinguish mercy and killed their failures. How did one grow up that way and become a hero?

"You stepped out of that door years ago." Clint paused.

"If you don't want to stay here, I can put you on a Stark Industries plane, drop you anywhere." Pepper stepped in close. "Or you could be with friends." She grasped his arms.

"Stark, what about you?" He knew Tony would be listening in.

"I need you out of the suite. Pepper, we still have a floor to assign?"

"Split my floor." stated Natasha.

Tony came out of the elevator. "Guess we're keeping you. JARVIS, you're contractor. Tick-Tock, come with me."

He looked at Pepper. "That worked?"

She rolled her eyes. "Tony, ask nicely."

"Armor is nicely. So happens I've got a prototype ready. Coming?"

"Let's see the armor first."

"Oh, that's given, milkshakes, yards."

There was no place like home. Home wasn't a place, but people.


End file.
